The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) became the first of 26 campuses in the region to host the Campus Level stage of this year’s Maybank Go Ahead Challenge (MGAC 2015). Sixty participants from local universities – with two-thirds coming from UNMC – demonstrated their business acumen in an entire-day challenge, held in various on-campus venues on May 6, 2015.
During the Challenge briefing, UNMC Careers Advisory (CAS) Head, Alicia Ch’ng said the overwhelming response from UNMC students had prompted the CAS team to host the Campus Level stage with Maybank.
“Due to overwhelming response to this competition, with more than 300 UNMC students registering for the Challenge, the CAS team decided we wanted to work with Maybank to give students the first taste of the highly anticipated MGAC 2015. This business competition is one-of-its-kind in the region and is a pleasing arena for our students to expand their network and meet like-minded and motivated people from different parts of the world such as Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Hong Kong and the Philippines.”
Alicia added, regardless of whether the students win or lose, their participation will not only boost their resumes but their effort will eventually translate into soft skills that are more than welcomed in future job applications.
“Going forward, the hands-on teamwork experience in this competition will make them much stronger job candidates in the future,” said Alicia.
The Campus Level stage was divided into exciting games in which the participants had to assume different team roles and collaboratively work on business case projects.
“The energy and effort from all the students were inspiring. All (participants) gave their best which resulted into very interesting outcomes and solutions to the challenges we had presented to them,” said one of MGAC 2015 organising commitee members Maria Fatima.
At the end of the Challenge, 10 students – eight from UNMC and two from Multimedia University – advanced to the next stage, which will be the National Level. They will join other Campus Level finalists for a spot on the week-long Grand Finals scheduled in August, which will gather the best participants from more than 13 countries. The deserving team and individual winners will receive the ultimate cash prize of USD72,000 and become part of the prestigious Global Maybank Apprentice Programme.
The qualifiers from UNMC included five students from Nottingham University Business School Malaysia, namely Mohamed Emad Abdelraouf Ahmed, Tasmia Maherien Chowdhury, Chaitan Kumar Purmessur, Muhammad Hafiz bin Hassan and Linur Chubaev.
Posted on 24th June 2015